Kiwis win first real Cup race

Originally published July 15, 2013 in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.  After a week of one-boat “races,” an argument over rules, and an angry sponsor making waves in international media, it would be easy to write off the America’s Cup as the lamest party in town (so lame, in fact, that the organizers have ceased …

New Zealand’s Cup

Originally published July 3, 2013 in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.  America's Cup, seen by many here as a billionaire's boat race, looks very different Down Under, with its culture of sailing and maritime innovation. A few weeks ago I was walking down the dock in the marina where I live, in Wellington, New Zealand, …

Hi-tech in the tidal zone

Originally published March 6, 2013 in Capital Times.  On a recent Friday afternoon I donned the filthiest life jacket I’ve ever seen, stepped aboard a flat steel punt dusty with concrete, and went to a place few ever go – the cool, dark underworld beneath Queens Wharf. Here, the water glows an eerie nuclear green and …

Kids’ TV could be better

Originally published February 27, 2013 in Capital Times. How much, when, and what to watch on the tele have been in parent-child negotiations since before Spot On hit the airwaves. The experts still say less is more, but the sheer ubiquity of televisions, computers, smart phones, tablets, game players, etc. and so on in the lounge, …

The wheel deal

Originally published February 13, 2013 in Capital Times.  I dodged a car door swinging toward me while biking to work along Evans Bay Parade. A few metres later the meagre cycle lane I was riding disappeared. Why are Wellington’s cycle lanes so few, so narrow, and so disconnected? Has riding a bike around the capital got …

These farms deliver

Evil Genius record store in Berhampore is an unlikely place to get a box of vegetables, but that’s where some Wellington residents go for theirs every Thursday. They’re not perusing the vinyl looking for victuals, though – they’re subscribers to Wairarapa Eco Farms’ Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) scheme. The concept is simple, but the ramifications …

Dig this summit

The physical act of sculpting a mountain bike trail out of a Wellington hillside gives Russel Garlick a sense of gratification he doesn’t always get at his day job. “When you work in I.T. you can change things really quick on the web. On a trail it takes a lot of effort and when you’re …

Tonnes of treasure trapped in trash

Last Sunday, Wellington officially switched from analogue to digital broadcasting. While it doesn’t render old cathode ray televisions entirely obsolete, most viewers dealt with the change by purchasing new televisions, which means a lot of sets gathering dust in the garage or taken to the dump. Amanda Witherell looks at what happens if you do the right …

Ride the storm

From left: Ania Upstill, Russell Silverwood, Rosie Rowe, and Stephanie Cairns are part of the crew that keeps Mechanical Tempest rolling. Russell Silverwood needed to fix his bike. “When I first heard about Mechanical Tempest, it was like an urban myth. It was this magical place with all these bike parts,” he tells Amanda Witherell. …

Profiles of change

Profiles of change SFBG Inauguration Issue: President Obama's call for citizen action is already resonating By Amanda Witherell   "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America," President Barack Obama told US citizens on his Inauguration Day. "For everywhere we look, there is work to …

Waning wildlife

Waning wildlife Bay Area wildlife is already being negatively affected by a warmer world By Amanda Witherell Changes to ocean and air temperatures, rising sea levels, loss of habitat, scarcity of food, altered precipitation patterns, environmental asynchronicity — these are the concerns of wildlife biologists who are watching the increased effects of climate change on …

Tap dreams

Tap dreams Who controls what we drink? Corporate water comes to (and from) San Francisco By Amanda Witherell On Dec. 2 two water conferences were held in San Francisco, attended by very different groups of people. Downtown, in a room deep within the Hyatt Regency hotel, executives from PepsiCo, Dean Foods, GE, ConAgra, and other …